Apart from being a worldwide leader in his area of quantum theory, he is the leading expert on the analysis of the Schroedinger equation, which is at the heart of mathematical models of atoms and molecules. He also made groundbreaking contributions to the theory of interaction between light and matter, known as Quantum Electrodynamics. He has been rewarded with many honors. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and received, in 1993, the John L. Synge Award for being an outstanding Canadian mathematician. These honors include several invited lectures at the International Congress of Mathematical Physics and the International Congress of Mathematics, and editorship of the following journals: Reviews in Mathematical Physics and Duke Mathematical Journal.

Professor Israel Michael Sigal (University of Toronto) gave a conference at the CRM on November 10, 2000 on "Renormalization Group Approach to Spectral Problems with Application to Theory of Radiation".

Russian born, he obtained his bachelor¹s degree at Gorky University in 1968 and later in life, his Ph. D. at Tel-Aviv University (1976). He is currently Professor at the University of Toronto.

The CRM created and administers, either alone or jointly, four of the eight major national prizes in the mathematical sciences, namely: the CRM–Fields–PIMS Prize, the Prize for Theoretical Physics awarded in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), the Prize for young researchers in Statistics awarded jointly with the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC), and the CRM Aisenstadt Prize awarded to rising young Canadian stars, selected by CRM's Scientific Advisory Panel. The CRM has invested enormously in time, effort and in its own resources, to propel leading Canadian scientists into the spotlight, giving them international recognition when they most need it.